Scholarly Works, Economics

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/24332

Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Women’s labour market participation and intimate partner violence in Ghana: A multilevel analysis
Owusu-Brown, Bernice (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-14)
In recent decades, the capabilities approach has emerged as the most pertinent theoretical framework for elucidating development, well-being, and justice. By emphasizing the multifaceted nature of human well-being, the capability approach advocates a broader perspective of development beyond mere economic growth. It underscores the necessity of considering various dimensions that contribute to the enhancement of human lives by assigning importance to freedom. One prevalent form of freedom violation is intimate partner violence, which stems from historically unequal power dynamics between men and women, resulting in the subjugation and discrimination of women by men and hindering the full realization of their potential. This profound restriction of freedom does not only violate their fundamental human rights but also jeopardizes their health, and, consequently, obstructs their active engagement in national economic and social development. The capability approach prescribes women’s empowerment as a remedy for curbing violence, as reflected in both conventional economic and non-economic models. These models forecast that women's engagement in the labor market enhances their bargaining power, leading to a decrease in intimate partner violence. However, in conflict are rather pessimistic models suggesting that women who earn more than their partners via their labor market participation are at risk of expiring increased partnered violence. Conscious of this bi-causal relationship and accounting for the potential endogeneity, I set out to empirically investigate the direction of association of this relationship within the Ghanaian context. Our key finding indicates that woman's work status significantly increases her likelihood of becoming a victim of partnered violence. I conclude that while there is a growing focus on creating job opportunities for women to foster gender equality and development, it is essential to consider and address the implications this may have on their safety and well-being.
Matching markets with middlemen under transferable utility
Atay, Ata; Bahel, Eric; Solymosi, Tamas (Springer, 2023-03)
This paper studies matching markets in the presence of middlemen. In our framework, a buyer-seller pair may either trade directly or use the services of a middleman; and a middleman may serve multiple buyer-seller pairs. For each such market, we examine the associated TU game. We first show that, in our context, an optimal matching can be obtained by considering the two-sided assignment market where each buyer-seller pair is allowed to use the mediation services of any middleman free of charge. Second, we prove that matching markets with middlemen are totally balanced: in particular, we show the existence of a buyer-optimal (seller-optimal) core allocation where each buyer (seller) receives her marginal contribution to the grand coalition. In general, the core does not exhibit a middleman-optimal allocation, not even when there are only two buyers and two sellers. However, we prove that in these small markets the maximum core payoff to each middleman is her marginal contribution. Finally, we establish the coincidence between the core and the set of competitive equilibrium payoff vectors.
Economics of Squid Game
Wooten, Jadrian; Geerling, Wayne (Taylor and Francis, 2023)
Rationally Inattentive Statistical Discrimination: Arrow Meets Phelps
Echenique, Federico; Li, Anqi (2022-12)
When information acquisition is costly but flexible, a principal may rationally acquire information that favors a “majority” group over “minorities” unless the latter are strictly more productive than the former (the relative size of the groups plays no actual role). Majorities therefore face incentives to in- vest in being productive to the principal, whereas minorities are discouraged from such investments. The principal, in turn, focuses scarce attentional resources on majorities precisely because they are likely to invest. Our results have welfare and policy implications, as they add to the discussion of affirmative action, as well as the empirical literature on implicit bias and discrimination in performance evaluation.
The Politics of Personalized News Aggregation
Hu, Lin; Li, Anqi; Segal, Ilya (2023)
We study how personalized news aggregation for rationally inattentive voters (NARI) affects policy polarization. In a two-candidate electoral competition model, an attention-maximizing infomediary aggregates source data about candidates’ valence into easy-to-digest news. Voters decide whether to consume news, trading off the expected gain from improved expressive voting against the attention cost. NARI generates policy polarization even if candidates are officemotivated. Personalized news aggregation makes extreme voters the disciplining entity of policy polarization. The skewness of their signals helps sustain a high degree of policy polarization in equilibrium. Analysis of disciplining voters informs the equilibrium and welfare consequences of regulating infomediaries.
Teaching Economics Using Scenes from Superstore
Wooten, Jadrian; Lynch, Brian (Inderscience Publishers, 2021)
Superstore follows a group of employees working at Cloud 9, a fictional big-box retailer in Missouri. The television show aired on NBC for 6 seasons and offers economic educators an abundance of scenes that can be used to teach undergraduate economics. All of the scenes mentioned in the lesson plans, and many more, are freely available online on the Teaching with Superstore website. A benefit of using a show like Superstore to teach economics is that it features a diverse cast and a familiar setting to any student who has shopped in a big box retailer. We highlight four episodes that are rich in teaching content and include assessment questions that instructors can assign in their classrooms. Each of the scenes outlined in the paper pose a particular economic problem faced by characters on the show with clear pedagogical economic concepts.
An In-Class Experiment to Teach Marginal Revenue Product Using the Baseball Labor Market and Moneyball
Wooten, Jadrian; White, Dustin R. (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2018)
We describe a class project exploring principles of marginal revenue product and labor markets through the professional baseball labor market. No prior knowledge of baseball is required to implement this project. The objective is to provide the student a better understanding of economic principles by collecting and analyzing data about professional baseball free agents. This is intended to highlight economic principles while increasing student engagement. The project culminates in an in-class draft and season simulation activity that allows the students to apply the information they have collected in order to make decisions based on their work.
Lesson Plans for Teaching Economics with The Big Bang Theory
Geerling, Wayne; Mateer, G. Dirk; Smith, Ben O.; Tierney, James E.; Wooten, Jadrian (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2018)
Using examples in the classroom from current and past television shows and movies is becoming increasingly common. Being able to relate ideas back to a popular clip or episode allows the instructor to reach students in ways the traditional lecture cannot. Building on the work of Tierney, Mateer, Smith, Wooten, and Geerling (2016), this paper introduces five lesson plans tied to clips from The Big Bang Theory that can be used in high school (9-12) economics courses.
Facilitating Student Connections and Study Partners During Periods of Remote and Online Learning
Wooten, Jadrian; Geerling, Wayne; Thomas, Nicola (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2020-01-01)
We outline an early-semester social activity designed to engage students with course material at an early point in the semester, but also to foster social and academic connections. Social engagement among students has been shown to have a positive impact on learning and the move to remote and online teaching has placed students in an environment lacking social opportunities. We provide formal and informal feedback of the events as well as extensions for additional social events that could be completed throughout the semester.
Economics in a Crisis: A Cautious Approach to Being Relevant
Wooten, Jadrian; Al-Bahrani, Abdullah (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2021-01-01)
While this may appear to be a good opportunity to bring real-life examples into the classroom and show how economics applies during a global pandemic, we advocate instead for a more cautious approach. One of the joys of teaching economics is that it can be applied to “everyday life,” but there are some moments in life where caution may be warranted.
Moneyball as a Resource for Teaching Economics
White, Dustin R.; Wooten, Jadrian (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2022-01-01)
The Teaching Economics with Moneyball website (https://www.moneyballsimulator.info/) includes material we have identified, created, and collated over the years and includes updates to a simulator that can be used to teach marginal revenue product. All material posted on the site is freely available to educators and submissions are encouraged.
Teaching Economics with Breaking Bad
Muchiri, Steve; Paraschiv, Mihai; Wooten, Jadrian (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2022-01-01)
This paper builds on the existing literature, to expand the stock of “chalk-and-talk” alternatives and reduce the cost of implementing such alternatives. Specifically, the paper proposes three lesson plans that are based on a series of Breaking Bad scenes identified in Duncan, Muchiri and Paraschiv (2020) and featured as part of the associated online companion, BreakingBadEcon.com. The lesson plans rely on the economic content within the scenes to introduce and emphasize a notable array of microeconomic concepts while also facilitating the assessment of concept comprehension and student learning.
The Most Magical Way to Teach: Disney Music In The Classroom
Jaeger, Michael; Wooten, Jadrian (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2022)
The Walt Disney Company, and its subsidiaries, are responsible for some of the most popular movies in existence. One of the things that makes the classic Disney movie unique is its soundtracks. Many of the movies have key songs that can be used to teach various economics concepts in the high school and postsecondary classroom. We provide three detailed lesson plans that outline how to use Disney music to teach foundational concepts, but also include a more extensive table that includes concepts covered in a variety of Disney songs.
Using Squid Game to Teach Game Theory
Geerling, Wayne; Nagy, Kristofer; Rhee, Elaine; Thomas, Nicola; Wooten, Jadrian (Journal of Economics Teaching, 2022)
This paper uses Netflix’s dystopian Korean-language drama series Squid Game (2021) to illustrate an active learning technique to support the teaching of game theory in undergraduate courses. The series is chosen because it demonstrates different games with which the characters have to engage as part of the narrative. Geerling, Mateer and Addler (2020) show that using popular films in class is an effective way to introduce and motivate the deeper learning of core game theory concepts. We build on this work by providing instructors with a menu of quick teaching scenes and extended teaching guides, from which they can freely select and adapt to their particular needs. These resources provide summaries of the scenes, links to the clips, key concepts, and assessment questions. This teaching material is suitable for use in both principles-level courses, where game theory is first introduced, and advanced-level courses.
Using K-Pop to Teach Indifference Curve Analysis, Behavioral Economics and Game Theory
Geerling, Wayne; Nagy, Kristofer; Rhee, Elaine; Wooten, Jadrian (2022-04-21)
Economic educators have been teaching with pop culture for decades, but until recently the focus was on English-based media. In this paper, we build on the work of Wooten et al. (2021b), who show how K-pop can be integrated into the principles-level curriculum. We develop three teaching guides that can be used to teach aspects of behavioral economics, game theory and indifference curve analysis – topics which are taught at the end of most principles-level courses but are also standalone upper-level courses. The three artists chosen – BTS, BLACKPINK and TWICE – have huge global followings. We hope this paper will contribute to the library of diverse and inclusive teaching resources while helping to address the deficit of resources available to instructors of upper-level courses.
Race and agriculture during the assimilation era: Evidence from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Gregg, Matthew T.; Miller, Melinda C. (Max Planck Institute Demographic Research, 2022-06-21)
BACKGROUND The role of race within tribal communities is a contentious topic, and some of this acrimony emerged from 19th-century Indian policies rooted in scientific racism. There has been relatively little written on the role of intermarriage within indigenous communities. METHODS We link household data from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century to individual two-generational family trees located in legal documents to investigate the link between personal property and whether a household head had white ancestry. RESULTS We find that the racial gap in property does not follow simple racial hierarchies but rather depends on the gender of the household head. However, once selection into intermarriage is accounted for, the racial gap in property from intermarriage is eliminated. In fact, households containing a male head with close white ancestors held less property than households containing a male head without white ancestry. CONTRIBUTION Understanding who chose to intermarry and how intermarriages impacted the economic status of both families and their children as adults can provide key insights into understanding racial inequality today.
Deposit Competition, Interbank Market, and Bank Profit
Jiang, Bo; Tzavellas, Hector; Yang, Xiaoying (MDPI, 2022-04-20)
In this paper, we study how the interbank market could impact deposit competition and bank profits. We first document two stylized facts: the net interbank funding ratio is negatively correlated with net interest margin (NIM), as well as with the cost-to-income ratio (CIR). To rationalize these two facts, we embed the interbank market into a BLP model framework. The model is calibrated using Chinese listed banks’ data. A counterfactual experiment reveals that shutting down the interbank market will lead to a decline in NIM and bank profits. Our results indicate that the interbank market can facilitate specialization and reduce the intensity of deposit competition.
Model Validation and DSGE Modeling
Poudyal, Niraj; Spanos, Aris (MDPI, 2022-04-07)
The primary objective of this paper is to revisit DSGE models with a view to bringing out their key weaknesses, including statistical misspecification, non-identification of deep parameters, substantive inadequacy, weak forecasting performance, and potentially misleading policy analysis. It is argued that most of these weaknesses stem from failing to distinguish between statistical and substantive adequacy and secure the former before assessing the latter. The paper untangles the statistical from the substantive premises of inference to delineate the above-mentioned issues and propose solutions. The discussion revolves around a typical DSGE model using US quarterly data. It is shown that this model is statistically misspecified, and when respecified to arrive at a statistically adequate model gives rise to the Student’s t VAR model. This statistical model is shown to (i) provide a sound basis for testing the DSGE overidentifying restrictions as well as probing the identifiability of the deep parameters, (ii) suggest ways to meliorate its substantive inadequacy, and (iii) give rise to reliable forecasts and policy simulations.
Gender Differences in Fear and Risk Perception During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Alsharawy, Abdelaziz Mohammed; Spoon, Ross; Smith, Alexander Charles; Ball, Sheryl B. (Frontiers, 2021-08)
The COVID-19 pandemic has led many people to suffer from emotional distress. Previous studies suggest that women process and express affective experiences, such as fear, with a greater intensity compared to men. We administered an online survey to a sample of participants in the United States that measures fear of COVID-19, perceptions about health and financial risks, and preventative measures taken. Despite the empirical fact that men are more likely to experience adverse health consequences from COVID-19, women report greater fear and more negative expectations about health-related consequences of COVID-19 than men. However, women are more optimistic than men regarding the financial consequences of the pandemic. Women also report more negative emotional experiences generally during the pandemic, particularly in situations where other people or the government take actions that make matters worse. Though women report taking more preventative measures than men in response to the pandemic, gender differences in behavior are reduced after controlling for fear. These results shed light on how differences in emotional experiences of the pandemic may inform policy interventions.
Resolving Land Use Conflicts
Tideman, T. Nicolaus (Farm Foundation, 1972)

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